The War on the Seas

In the year 964, the Federation Wars finally came to a conclusion in the Meadow regions of the continent of Eden, leading to the creation of the Greater Eden Union and the unification of the colonies once more. After the war concluded, the Union's leaders turned their gazes towards two directions for grabs to power; one looked out to the rest of Eden's lands, and the other looked to the seas connecting to the Old World from whence the colonies came. The leader of the Eciton Provinces was assigned to the march for the Eastern lands, while the great naval power of the original Federation, Gastion, was given jurisdiction of the High Seas Fleet and protection of Union commerce.
For the first century, trade with the Old World grew steadily as relations with the Old Nations improved as they received shipments of Eden goods for surprisingly low prices. For many of the Old Nations, the independent Eden colonies had become their greatest trading partner and now began to disregard many of their old commerce lines. The most significant of these neglected trade lines were the merchant lines connecting the Empire of Myrma and the Vespule Trade Republic. The Vespules were dependent on trade as a major source of income, for the land on which they lived was poor for crop growing, and natural resources for industrial foundries were short on hand, so instead the Vespules used what they had and entered the trading scene.
Before the Eden Union dominated trade with the Old Nations, the Vespules used to be the primary trading partner with the Imperials of Myrma due to the high-quality clothing materials produced by the Republic. Additionally, the Vespules had mastered the refinement of naval armor and had been selling the first products to the Myrma, until the Union arrived and trade began to slow down. The Vespules were now being cast aside by the Myrma as a minor trade partner, now favoring the Union's fresh Eden resources over the clothing and armor of the Vespules. The leaders of the Trade Republic were now furious, and they intended to do something about it.
It was in the year 1072 when the Vespules first task force of the TDF approached Eden merchant ships headed for Myrma. The captain of the task force gave the merchant fleet a single warning to turn around, the ships kept powering forward to earn their pay, and so the task force opened fire. The merchant fleet was sunk within 5 minutes of the first shot going off, and there were no survivors, everything sank beneath the waves and no message had made it to the High Seas Fleet of the Vespule raiders. The Vespule task force then cheered for its victory before departing to attack merchant fleet after merchant fleet, all on their way to the Myrma Empire. With every convoy destroyed, the chances of the Union discovering the conflict increased, especially since the Vespules began capturing the supplies of the merchant ships to eventually sell to the Empire.
The Vespule clover had not yet exhausted itself when the scissors chance decided to snip it when the Vespule's greed had exceeded its limit. In the 6th month of the year 1073, the Vespule commerce raiders came across a larger Union merchant fleet totaling 25 ships, including five Eden destroyer class vessels. The Vespules, still on a string of luck and driven by their immense greed for private trade with the Empire, engaged the fleet without thinking of potential consequences. The merchant fleet was surprised, but they weren't unresponsive when their destroyer compliment sunk two of the smaller raiding ships after the Vespules finished their first volley. At the beginning of the battle, however, a small clipper ship disembarked from the flagship of the merchant fleet with a message to the HSF and had successfully escaped while the fleet kept the Vespule raiders occupied.
When the clipper ship reached the main group of the HSF and its leading admiral, Caros Kivalis, there was confusion amongst the sailors as to why the clipper ship was here. The confusion turned to anger however when the message of the clipper was verbally sent to the admiral of the fleet, who announced it to the rest of his mates in a resounding yell. The admiral then sent the clipper ship to the mainland with a message to the Union council on a declaration of high seas war with the Vespules. Kivalis wasn't going to wait for an answer from the Union and wasn't about to bow to an order of ignorance from the politicians leading the new nation, so he mustered his fleet and sailed off to engage the Vespule commerce raiders in violent combat.
While the Union's fleet was ready to fight tooth and nail to the last dying breath of each of its sailors, the Vespule task force wasn't so inclined to fight the HSF head-on with its current numbers, so they continued the hit and run tactics on merchant fleets until reinforcements could arrive. Admiral Kivalis tried and tried again to catch the Vespule fleet anywhere on the waves, but by the time they arrived at their last known location, the fleet was gone without a trace with another merchant fleet sunk. Kivalis' patience was beginning to run thin as the Union lost more income, ships, and people at the hands of these agile trade pirates, using plan after plan to catch the Vespule raiders in the act, or anywhere on the open waters, but nothing seemed effective.
No plan functioned like it should've until Kivalis had gotten one simple idea that could lead to the full-frontal oceanic engagement with the Vespule's main fleet and hopefully for Kivalis, their complete destruction. The plan was as follows; Stock a large trade fleet with incredible resources and wealth bound for the Empire, send the fleet out under the black clouds of a sea-storm, trail behind the fleet in a single file line, and then wait for the Vespules to strike from the rocky waves. The plan wasn't anything special, drawing an enemy of greed towards their main target to where one can strike with surprise and crush their foe, but the plan led to one of the most important naval combats on the open seas within the nine-hundredth century.
It was halfway to Myrma across the Janu Sea when the merchant fleet and the HSF had entered the ancient sea storm called Isael and crashed upon the violent waves and bullet-like rains slamming against the ship's hulls. Around thirty minutes into Isael, Kivalis' lower captains began to worry that the Vespules would not show, and that they should leave the storm before ships began to capsize beneath the waves, but Kivalis drove on, and his tenacity would pay off. Around fifteen minutes later, the tip of the Vespule spear was spotted straight ahead of the merchant flagship, three destroyers, and a single cruiser. Farther behind the tip were the two main wings of the Vespule task force, all lying in wait. The Union admiral sent the order to the merchant fleet to disembark from the sea zone, and the HSF's main fleet darted into action, the single file line now spreading out to show the Union's bulky thirty-four ship fleet on approach to the Vespule line.
The Battle of Isael's Eye was a ruthless and bloody engagement between the Union HSF's first fleet and the majority of the Vespule naval combat force fought within the eye of an ancient storm which caused more damage than the actual guns mounted on the ships themselves. Twenty-three total ships with their full crew went down during the battle, leaving the Vespule task force badly battered, and the Union fleet only further hardened with experience and refueled anger. The remaining five ships in the Vespule fleet were ordered back to their homeland to join the defensive blockade for when the Union would eventually arrive and attempt an invasion. Meanwhile, admiral Kivalis spent at least a month mustering a commerce defense plan that the HSF would now enact due to the recent breaches shown in their defenses. More ships would be needed for this defensive convoy plan, but it would pay off when dealing with the threat of pirates, and the newfound dangers of other aggressive nations.
After the battle, many of Kivalis' men wished to pursue the Vespule fleet all the way back to the Republic's homeland if needed, however, Kivalis himself had no intentions of chasing revenge wishes after the battle left his fleet damaged in a vicious storm. So, the fleet turned towards homeward shores to bring the message of victory, and the request for more ships to replenish the fleet and arm the new convoys. Additionally, Union leaders drew up a peace treaty to be sent to the Vespules in order to end the hostilities before any more lives were needlessly lost over trade disputes. The confused Trade Republic, still waiting for a counterstrike at their homeland received the peace deal when a Union clipper bearing a white flag entered the capital port. Vespule leaders begrudgingly accepted the peace deal, allowing the Union to have 75% of Imperial trade control while allowing the Vespules little space in Myrma markets. The deal was unbalanced, but it was better than nothing for the Republic that until recently lost everything from income, to ships, and to precious lives.
The war officially ended in the middle of 1073, when the signed peace deal arrived in the Union capital of Otoria, and new trade routes between the Union and Vespules had opened. The Republic was able to stand on its feet thanks to the economic assistance shared after the war had closed, starting a bond that would eventually stand as an unbreakable wall in the face of global injustice.

Conflict Type

War